Wheeling And Dealing

Roadside Vendors Lure Street-smart Shoppers

They are those people at the intersection parking lots who bring us Elvis on velvet and James Dean prints and big, ripe watermelon and brightly colored rugs, and they are doing quite well, thank you.

They are the entrepreneurs out there under God's blue sky and rain clouds and wind and even snow, and they are a friendly sort who say they'll give you a better deal because of low overhead, blue sky . . . and rain, being free, of course.

Maybe they are not really street vendors since they do business in parking lots, but whatever they are called they are part of the suburban landscape, particularly now as warm summer days chase people out of doors to enjoy and examine their surroundings.

Ray Woods is on the back of a truckload of watermelons at Dixie Highway and 159th Street in Markham, slicing off samples and watching the customers smack their lips and say, "Give me one that tastes just like that."

John Podzamsky, an 81-year-old Wheaton resident, is out at the intersection of highways 62 and 25 in Algonquin waiting for customers to buy the wooden windmills, picnic tables and furniture that are displayed around him.

"The main reason I'm out here is that I get to talk to a lot of nice people," Podzamsky says.

Brian Potucek is at Maple and Belmont Avenues in Downers Grove with his framed prints spread across the parking area as two customers look at one of Potucek's best sellers: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," a composite picture of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Humphrey Bogart.

Thomas Beilhart is at the intersection of Rand Road and Euclid Avenue in Arlington Heights with his rugs draped over the racks and his two dogs napping under his old Ford van while customers stroll among the rugs, and Beilhart thinks about how he enjoyed the recent visit of his wife and two kids who are now back home in Florida.

Don Kraemer is at the intersection of Illinois Highway 132 and U.S. Highway 45 in Lake County, bemoaning the fact that he cannot keep Elvis in stock because of the high demand, and he's telling a potential customer that oil on velvet is better than oil on canvas because if you put them side by side on the wall, the oil on velvet shows up better.

Also, Kraemer says, if an oil on velvet gets dirty, "all you have to do is hose it off."

So these and other merchants of the intersections were out there on a recent Saturday while the suburban populace flowed around them like a running sea and the rain-free weather outlook was enough to make an outdoor vendor smile like Dolly Parton on one of Potucek's prints.

"I make more money than I did working for somebody else, and I am my own boss," says Potucek, 33, who grew up in Clarendon Hills and graduated from Southern Illinois University with a business degree.

Potucek has a brother, sister and sister-in-law who are also in the print-selling business, and on this day they are at other suburban intersections.

"On a good day I might sell as many as 300 prints," Potucek says. "We get a semi-truck load of prints from California every two weeks."

The prints are glass-covered and in metal frames. Prices range from $7 to $45, and Potucek says they are the same prints you would buy for more money in an art store.

"I don't have a clue as to why people want to buy Elvis prints," Potucek says, "but I sell as many as I can get, and lots of kids buy them, young kids who weren't even born when Elvis was around."

Kraemer, who lives in Spring Grove, has been a hard-core outdoor merchant for several years, putting out his oils-on-velvet year-round, even in the winter.

"I just brush the snow away and set up my paintings," Kraemer says.

The paintings are in wooden frames that are made in Mexico, but Kraemer says the paintings are done in the United States by artists who sign themselves with names like Ortez and Sanchez.

"I don't think it takes them very long to do some of these, but they do a good job," Kraemer says. "Look at the detail in that Indian headdress. And the eyes on that panther make it look as if the animal is alive."

While his is a very unpredictable business, Kraemer says there are some things that he can plan on. Around Father's Day he will sell paintings of John Wayne and wolves and rottweiler dogs.

"Mother's Day is good for selling unicorns," Kraemer says, pointing to a painting of two nuzzling unicorns over a bouquet of roses with the words "I love you," painted across the center.

"Young people buy that one for each other too," he adds.

Kraemer says that oil on velvet is considered trashy by some people, but he adds, "Art is whatever you want it to be, and if you like something you shouldn't care what other people think about it."

"These are the best oil on velvet you can buy," Kraemer says. "I could sell cheaper stuff but I don't want to do that. I want to sell something I like and feel good about."